The present invention relates to a new and distinct early day-neutral strawberry variety designated as ‘LILI’ (a.k.a. ‘101983’, or ‘LILY’). This new variety is the result of a controlled-cross between two proprietary cultivars made by the Inventor and was first fruited in Watsonville, Calif. growing fields. The identities of the two parental cultivars were inadvertently lost during the breeding process, but ‘LILI’ was identified and selected as a new and distinctive variety from a cultivated area where the off-spring derived from the cross were planted. No other sibling from the cross between these two parental proprietary cultivars was collected.
Following selection and during testing, the plant was originally designated ‘101983’ and subsequently named ‘LILI’. The new variety of ‘LILI’ was asexually reproduced via runners (stolons) by the inventor at Watsonville, Calif. Asexual propagules from the original source have been tested in the Watsonville growing fields and, to a limited extent, growing fields in low and high elevation. The properties of this variety were found to be transmissible by such asexual reproduction. The cultivar is stable and reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.